Bhopal to Mumbai

Mumbai

Today is day 164 of our trip and the last five days have been full of adventures and thought- provoking experiences: having lunch at a family's home, visiting Mumbai's biggest slum and being extras in a Bollywood TV show!!!

Before getting on a 4 hour-delayed train to Mumbai Monday night, we had lunch at the home of Raj Kumar, a very kind man whose family we met in Sanchi the previous day. We took a rickshaw out to their home and spent a few hours talking with them and getting to know each other better. Raj's daughter Umika and nephew Manish were both wonderful and, as they were both visiting their family in Bhopal, invited us to visit them in their respective homes if we visit their cities. Raj's wife Sima cooked a delicious Sindhi meal consisting of a vegetable stew/curry and Umika showed us how to make chai- India's most popular drink. They were so welcoming and generous and we hope to be able to visit Manish and Umika if time permits.

On Wednesday, we spent the morning on a tour of the Dharavi slum, Asia's second largest slum after Karachi in Pakistan. The slum covers about 1.7 sq. kilometers of land and is home to over one million residents. The organization that runs the tour uses 80% of its proceeds to run a kindergarten and job-training/personality development courses for adults. We visited several of the factories in Dharavi- plastic recycling,cloth dying, oil and paint can recycling, and clay pottery. We also visited some residents' homes. On average, there are 4-8 members living in a home and 43% of families have 10 sq. m of space in which to cook, eat and sleep. We visited an elementary school where the teacher was in the middle of a math lesson, which was quite exciting. When the students in the class found out I was a math teacher, they all wanted to show me their workbooks and what they had completed. This evening, I purchased a book about Dharavi and hope to learn more about the community that lives there.

It was on the same day of the tour that we met a really interesting and engaging couple Amy and Jeff. We met them for dinner at one of Mumbai's top restaurants that evening and had a fantastic time with them. We enjoyed sharing our travel experiences and hope to see them some time in the future!

Yesterday morning, shortly after I woke up, the hotel manager told us that a casting agent was looking for Western people to be extras in the Bollywood TV show Powder. I was on board right away and, after some serious thought, S decided to do it too. The casting agent picked us up at our hotel at 6PM where we took a hour and a half 10 km drive through some of Mumbai's worst traffic. While the first few hours we mostly just sat around the set with the other extras, we started filming around 10:30 PM. It was a two minute clip with the main character leaving a train station, bargaining with a taxi driver and then, after talking to a self-centered young motorcyclist, getting on the back of his motorcycle and driving off. S and I, hard to believe, were playing foreigners who just got off the train and were getting on a tour bus. They did about 8-10 takes from 5 different angles which lasted until 3AM. We were provided dinner, chai to keep us alert and 500 rupees (10 US dollars) for our work. It was a long night with lots of waiting around but it was certainly worthwhile!
We have really enjoyed our time in Mumbai- it is a beautiful city with lots of life and character. Definitely my favorite city so far. We catch a train to Ahmedabad tomorrow afteroon.